Rise in homelessness has new Family Promise director scooting

As homelessness hits an increasing number of families, Family Promise has committees working to address three pressing needs: Transportation, room to grow and childcare.

“Transportation is a huge issue,” said Elliott Brown, who took over as director of the interfaith organization in February, after its first director, Emily Bugay, relocated to Greenville.

“It’s a bigger problem than I thought it would be. In Austin, we had public transportation. I think (the lack of public transport) is the biggest barrier to employment here,” said Brown, formerly director of one of Family Promise’s 165 affiliates, Austin’s Interfaith Hospitality Network.

While not all of the affiliates made the name change to Family Promise, they all share a commitment to helping homeless low-income families achieve lasting independence.

The “day center” on Bluffton Road is a place where families can eat, relax and try to improve their lives. It’s also 1,500 square feet and very full.

“Our lease ends in May,” said Brown. “We’ve outgrown this and are looking for a new place. We’re full if we serve four families or 14 people, because that’s how many we can fit in our van.”

Most of the time, some of the adults are at work or looking for work and at least some of the children are in childcare. Hover, when everyone is “home” at once, “it’s pretty chaotic,” Brown said. “Ideally we would have a church that would let us use their building and have a volunteer stay with them.”

In November, Family Promise of Beaufort County was named one of the state’s top 10 “Angel” charities, as designated by the S.C. Secretary of State’s Office. More than 60 percent funded through individual donations, the charity provides shelter to homeless families through a network of 13 local churches and synagogues. According to the Secretary of State’s press release, Family Promise spends 99.9 percent of its expenses on program activities — the highest percentage of any charity on the list.

Much of the rest the group’s funding comes from grants. One recently-won grant will pay for a Glimmer of Hope Project to address a common catch-22 faced by working parents, Brown said.

“If you don’t have employment, you can’t get childcare vouchers, but if you don’t have childcare, you can’t get employment,” she said.

Once childcare is secured, it costs about 60 percent of an average Beaufort County working family’s income.

“Our goal in Together for Beaufort was in 2012 that the cost of childcare would not exceed 25 percent,” said Lolita Huckaby Watson, an information specialist with Beaufort County Alliance for Human Services.

That goal won’t be met by 2012, but a countywide group has recently formed to address the issue of childcare costs, Watson said.

A parent making the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour would earn $290 before taxes. Childcare costs on average $130 per week per child, Brown said, or $260 for two children.

An increasing problem

Homelessness among families is on the rise, and families make up half of all homeless people in the U.S., up from 40 percent just a decade ago, according to Brown.

The number of Beaufort County School District students qualifying as homeless has skyrocketed from 38 in 2007 to 125 by the end of the 2010-11 school year. Those who are identified qualify for free breakfast and lunch and out-of-zone transportation through the McKinney-Vento Homeless Act.

However both Brown and Watson think the number of homeless children in Beaufort County is higher. Brown said she’s been taught to double the number found in the schools, because those students in all likelihood have siblings.

“A lot of the children are sleeping on couches, and they have to move from home to home,” Watson said. “According to state law, if a school counselor realizes a family is homeless, they have to report it, and there’s the possibility of the parents losing custody of their children. That’s why we believe the reported number is much lower than it really is.

“Look in a classroom,” she said. “Often you don’t know who is homeless.”

Family Promise is serving about 38 percent more families this year than last, Brown said, and are full.

She gets about 10 calls each week from those needing a place to stay, and there is no other homeless shelter in Beaufort County.

“It’s horrible not to have a place to refer to,” she said. “We tell them to check other shelters in other counties.”

While the need for shelter is very real, Brown said Family Promise is focused on seeing families permanently move toward independence, not increasing its capacity as a short-term shelter.

“Because Family Promise uses existing resources to make it all work out, we will always be limited in how many we can serve,” she said. To expand, Family Promise would need an entire second network of congregations, possibly from Beaufort.

Thirteen congregations currently work together to host the four Family Promise families, rotating each for one week at a time. A coordinator from each church or synagogue organizes the 60-90 volunteers needed to provide three meals a day and a volunteer to stay overnight with the families.

Clients are invited in for 30 days, and if they meet all the guidelines — including searching for work, housing and childcare — and don’t disrupt the shelter, they are invited back for up to a total of 90 days.

With their basic needs met, parents can begin to think and plan beyond the crisis of food and shelter.

“At our lowest point, they treated us like we were part of their family,” said Janiqua Green, a married 23-year-old mother of a 14-month-old daughter.

She said she’s had help securing interview clothes and building her resume, as well as moral support while at Family Promise.

“It means more when you have someone who looks at you as a person and sees the potential in you,” she said.

Both Greens are enrolled in college online and hunting for full-time employment.

“This is your chance to start over fresh, to prove to yourself you can accomplish great things with the help of someone who truly cares for you,” said Green. “(Family Promise) is one of the best things that’s happened to me and my family.”

Brown began her career in service work as a tutor for Americorps, before moving into interfaith work. She loved to work with the children and families in need. However, it’s the quiet army of faithful volunteers that sustains her.

“The volunteers inspire me every day to be a better person, to help the families get back on their feet,” she said. Synagogue members recently paid the repair bill to get a client’s car up and running: $900.

“They do amazing things and are not getting paid for it,” Brown said.

While Brown said she is still getting used to Bluffton, Bugay said upon departing that affordable housing would go a long way toward protecting Bluffton’s families from homelessness, especially those on the edge of becoming homeless.

According to the Family Promise website, there is not one city or county in the U.S. where a person working for minimum wage can afford a fair market one-bedroom apartment.

Meanwhile, an estimated 2 more million children will fall victim to the foreclosure crisis in the next two years.

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